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A review by fourtriplezed
Deep Time Dreaming: Uncovering Ancient Australia by Billy Griffiths
4.0
My archaeological reading in the past has been purely British and for that I can thank my dad who left me a library of his books on the subject. That was later boosted with regular watching’s of Time Team, a popular show here in Australia back in the day. I also eventually devoured the works of Francis Prior after a visit to Flag Fen when making a visit to the UK many years back.
No complaints, but this book has made me realise that I have missed reading about what has happened in Australia and how as a nation archaeology has had a huge impact in terms of both the cultural and political understanding of both the past and the present.
The only negatives I have taken from Billy Griffiths very good history are two. The Epilogue was written for the release in 2018, a mere nanosecond in the scheme of things when it concerns the passing of archaeological time, but a lifetime in changes to the thoughts on the culture and history of a nation. With such deep research and reading of many texts on the subject, as shown in the superb end notes, that a bibliography would have been extremely useful to the likes of me that would be more than willing to read further on this enthralling subject.
But let’s put those minor gripes aside because this has been a fascinating read for me personally, and I would add that I would fail to understand how it could not be for anyone with a modicum of interest in understanding the history of Australia’s deep past via archaeological research.
It could be said that there has been a slow change in national consciousness concerning Australian History. The convict past of white Australia was very much put to the back of that consciousness due to a national embarrassment that British colonisation of the continent was via the transport of the so-called dregs of that nation, with this criminal class being the backbone of so-called modern development. As to what came before, there was seemingly a rejection that the original inhabitants could have had any kind of history at all. Vere Gordon Childe wrote in 1957 ‘I’m sure it’s something worth studying and preserving…..particularly the “Aboriginal” Rock pictures’ but there were but 3 or 4 people working in the field with next to no training nor adequate resources back then.
Things changed slowly from the coming of John Mulvaney who had been in Britain in WW2 and had immersed himself in ancient cathedrals and castles. On return, he took an interest in archaeology and his contributions to small diggings back in the mid 1950’s have led to larger archaeological works and the resources required that at present are striving to give an understanding of this ancient land's Deep Time and, as the title says, it's dreaming via the first nations' knowledge of antiquity.
One event that took my particular attention was Chapter Eight, "You Have Entered Aboriginal Land”.
I have youthful memories of the controversy that was the attempt by the Tasmanian state government to dam the Gordon below Franklin River in the early 1980s. It has been said that that controversy was part of the reason why the then Federal Government lost the election in 1983. In a high court decision of great significance, the archaeological work that had been done at both Kutikina Cave and Deena Reena Cave were deemed to show that to inundate these would have been in breach of Australia’s obligations under the World Heritage Properties Conservation Act. One judge stated that ‘Parliament was entitled to act…..to preserve the material evidence of the history and culture of the Tasmanian Aboriginals.’ After a Tasmanian Hydro-Electric official stated he saw no good reason to keep the caves, ‘What good does it do to anyone?’ he said. John Mulvaney was aghast that after 3 decades of working in the field there was still a lack of understanding as to what archaeology could achieve in the way of cross-cultural understanding, cultural pride, and local, national and global narratives. Indeed.
A very easy to read book that has been well researched, and I can but do no more than highly recommend to anyone with an interest in Archaeology.
No complaints, but this book has made me realise that I have missed reading about what has happened in Australia and how as a nation archaeology has had a huge impact in terms of both the cultural and political understanding of both the past and the present.
The only negatives I have taken from Billy Griffiths very good history are two. The Epilogue was written for the release in 2018, a mere nanosecond in the scheme of things when it concerns the passing of archaeological time, but a lifetime in changes to the thoughts on the culture and history of a nation. With such deep research and reading of many texts on the subject, as shown in the superb end notes, that a bibliography would have been extremely useful to the likes of me that would be more than willing to read further on this enthralling subject.
But let’s put those minor gripes aside because this has been a fascinating read for me personally, and I would add that I would fail to understand how it could not be for anyone with a modicum of interest in understanding the history of Australia’s deep past via archaeological research.
It could be said that there has been a slow change in national consciousness concerning Australian History. The convict past of white Australia was very much put to the back of that consciousness due to a national embarrassment that British colonisation of the continent was via the transport of the so-called dregs of that nation, with this criminal class being the backbone of so-called modern development. As to what came before, there was seemingly a rejection that the original inhabitants could have had any kind of history at all. Vere Gordon Childe wrote in 1957 ‘I’m sure it’s something worth studying and preserving…..particularly the “Aboriginal” Rock pictures’ but there were but 3 or 4 people working in the field with next to no training nor adequate resources back then.
Things changed slowly from the coming of John Mulvaney who had been in Britain in WW2 and had immersed himself in ancient cathedrals and castles. On return, he took an interest in archaeology and his contributions to small diggings back in the mid 1950’s have led to larger archaeological works and the resources required that at present are striving to give an understanding of this ancient land's Deep Time and, as the title says, it's dreaming via the first nations' knowledge of antiquity.
One event that took my particular attention was Chapter Eight, "You Have Entered Aboriginal Land”.
I have youthful memories of the controversy that was the attempt by the Tasmanian state government to dam the Gordon below Franklin River in the early 1980s. It has been said that that controversy was part of the reason why the then Federal Government lost the election in 1983. In a high court decision of great significance, the archaeological work that had been done at both Kutikina Cave and Deena Reena Cave were deemed to show that to inundate these would have been in breach of Australia’s obligations under the World Heritage Properties Conservation Act. One judge stated that ‘Parliament was entitled to act…..to preserve the material evidence of the history and culture of the Tasmanian Aboriginals.’ After a Tasmanian Hydro-Electric official stated he saw no good reason to keep the caves, ‘What good does it do to anyone?’ he said. John Mulvaney was aghast that after 3 decades of working in the field there was still a lack of understanding as to what archaeology could achieve in the way of cross-cultural understanding, cultural pride, and local, national and global narratives. Indeed.
A very easy to read book that has been well researched, and I can but do no more than highly recommend to anyone with an interest in Archaeology.